Dizzy Cordova of 100 Bullets, with her true first name being Isabel. Also most of the rest of the Minutemen, with Meaningful Names or Punny Names like Jack Daw, Victor Ray, Cole Burns, and Lono, named after a Hawaiian god.

Tintin means something along the lines of "nothing at all." It's apparently his last name.

"Tintin" sounds like a lot of French nicknames which take a syllable from a name and reduplicate it, such as Fifi (for Sophie, Yvonne, Josephine), Popaul (Paul) (Bébel (Jean-Paul Belmondo) once played the titular hero of the film Dr. Popaul), Didi and Gogo (Vladimir and Estragon). Tintin could be derived from Célestin, Constatin or Martin, good Catholic names for the hero of a series created for a Catholic newspaper. The first serial hero Hergé created was the boy-scout Totor.

In French: Professeur Tournesol (Sunflower) translated as Calculus in English. Capitaine Haddock (like the fish), Bianca Castafiore, which in Italian means White Chasteflower, in Secret de la Licorne (The Secret of the Unicorn) the Loiseau brothers (Meaning Thebird brothers (just "Bird brothers" in the translation). Lampshaded when they are identified by a man they shot pointing at birds). In Vol 714 pour Sydney (Flight 714) Laszlo Carreidas translates as Laszlo Four Aces (as in a poker game). Also in Flight 714, first appearing in Coke en Stock (The Red Sea Sharks), is the pilot Szut. "Zut" is a very mild French expletive. Lampshaded when Captain Haddock thinks the man is cursing when asked his name. There are quite a few more, making Hergé a master of this trope.

In Hopeless Savages, the main character is called Skank Zero Hopeless-Savage. Her siblings' names are Rat Bastard, Arsenal Fierce and Twitch Strummer, all Hopeless-Savages. The reason being that their parents are punk musicians Dirk Hopeless (formerly his stage name, later legally changed) and Nikki Savage (her birth name).

Likely the best super-villain name ever, Wonder Woman's foe Dr. Psycho. (According to the character's original origin, his family immigrated to America, where a barely-literate immigration clerk misspelled their last name at processing, changing it to "Psycho".)

Scott Pilgrim: Knives Chau. "Who names their kids Knives?!" Most of the Scott Pilgrim characters also qualify, including Scott Pilgrim, Ramona Flowers, Gideon Gordon Graves, and Envy Adams, though that's not her real first name (it's derived from Natalie V).

The writers of comics, considering that Marv Wolfman exists.

Transmetropolitan: Spider Jerusalem. Also a literal McCool name in Robert McX, the most honest journalist in The City apart from Spider.

Slade Deathstroke the Terminator. Deathstroke. His actual name is Slade Wilson. Deathstroke the Terminator is his nom de guerre. In Teen Titans, he just went by "Slade".

Power Man was born Carl Lucas, but promptly changed his name to Luke Cage. These days he goes by Luke Cage because frankly that's just as bad-ass as "Power Man." (Nicolas Coppola agreed that "Cage" was way better.)

Pick a male Wolfrider from ElfQuest; two out of three have names like Bearclaw, Strongbow, One Eye, Mantricker, Redlance, and so on.

Everybody in Astro City; Samaritan, Winged Victory, Crackerjack, the Hanged Man, you get the idea.

Judge Dredd: Judge Joseph Dredd. Justified in-universe: Dredd is a clone of Fargo, the founder of the Judges, and the name was specifically chosen to inspire... well, dread. Other examples include Sidney D'Eath AKA Judge Death, and Judge Kraken (another Fargo clone from the Judda incursion).

The Simping Detective: Lampshaded with the protagonist Jack Point: "What's the point?" "Comes right after the Jack."

"Johnny Alpha" is a Nom de Guerre, but Johnny hasn't used his real name in decades. It's hard to explain why without spoiling a large part of the series, but if his real name became public knowledge, a lot of people, including him, would be in a very bad position.

Invoked in Caballistics, Inc.. Lawrence Verse and Hannah Chapter answer the two questions they're asked most often, one of which is whether those are really their names.note The other is whether they're lovers. They're not, given one is a former priest who took a vow of celibacy and the other identifies as a lesbian, though there was a drunken altercation between them in the past. They're not, but a gimmick like that draws in more clients for their monster hunting business.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy